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111071-been-away-how-is-wildstar-doing
Content ---- Ooooooh yes. It's been tumultuous. In the shortest of short and broad strokes: PVP has suddenly become godlike again. They got fixes that punished ratings tankers and gear got buffed. Apparently, the new buzzword there is that TKK is a tad too high, but they're all thrilled with the changes. The PVE front had the content pushed back because there are apparently some huge changes coming. Like, serious stuff. Hints have been that gearing will be completely reworked (some kind of one-for-one boss drop token system to fill gaps, smaller loot tables). Attunement will have a bronze rather than silver medal requirement and they're looking to do something about world boss kill numbers. Frost hinted that there's something in the works to increase concurrency (we're speculating it's some kind of trio of megaservers or crossrealm stuff, but they've released no details). Lots of bugs getting worked out, a few getting introduced (if you had a craft in your table last time you were here and find you can't mount, go there and finish it). Enigma is a good chunk of the way through Datascape now, but still haven't cleared it. Lots more people are in Genetic Archive now. Oh yeah, and Gaffney demoted himself from president and is working as an outboard consultant since he looked at his life and realized he nearly killed himself by not treating his cancer and never got to see his family. I'm skipping a lot, but yeah, there's a lot going on. | |} ---- ---- The Good News: Carbine finally seems to have become self aware and cognizant of the fact that their game may, in fact, be flawed and are starting to make some productive changes to it. They've also slowed down their ludicrously breakneck development schedule in order to *gasp* test things. This may, in fact, help to reduce the horrifying bugginess that's plagued the game thus far. The Bad News: A huge portion of the playerbase has already left, and thanks to the unfathomable horrors of Carbine's customer service and community outreach I suspect many of them aren't in much of the mood to come back. On top of this is the fact that every major world-first kill and many servers' server-first achievements have fallen to the use of exploits, removing most of the competitive aspect of high-end PvE and driving away the 'hardcore' raiding crowd Carbine wants as they've not yet punished any of the offenders nor fixed a large number of the exploits in question. Exploits have also decimated PvP, contributing to the rise of many high-ranked PvPers who now have sufficient gear to ignore any other player's skill completely and who run about RBGs and Arenas with impunity due to poor matchmaking and a severe lack of people queueing to begin with that might allow for better matching. Aaaaaand Carbine is still playing by their old book when it comes to server merges, which basically means they're lying outright to the community about population or dodging questions completely by canceling interviews and closing down discussions. This, of course, is going on in an environment where being one of the "better" servers means you have enough people to sustain a single raiding guild for each faction while being on the other side of the line means you're basically playing Skyrim in Space. Actually, you've probably got a better chance of finding other people in Skyrim than on servers like Rowsdower now. Even server- and world-first guilds are frequently commenting that the most difficult part of raiding at this juncture is just finding 40 active people. The TL;DR: Carbine's finally taking some customer input to heart, but it took the shock of their game nearly stumbling into an early grave for that to happen. There's some chance for it to stabilize but a real recovery is still a long way off. Also Carbine still has a big ego problem. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- :mellow: | |} ---- ---- ---- You know its getting bad when even the botters and goldfarmers leave :) But seriously I will keep playing and wait for the changes,hopefully they will do a campaign to try and get players back once they have sorted the major issues. | |} ---- ---- Well, we know it's in the works. Frost has mentioned they are DEFINITELY working on something. If it's taking this long, I imagine it's at least going to be merges, probably more. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- My sig used to be "Retired from Wildstar until Carbine makes it function properly," but since the formerly 200-man guild I founded has been forced to merge just to sustain a 20-man roster for GA I really have no ties to the game anymore. My interactions with Carbine staff while playing and even moreso since my departue have only cemented my decision to leave. I've stuck around here thanks to having amassed CREDD during the first month to help advocate for the interests of my friends and former guildies still playing. I work in gaming & tech journalism, so "backstage" access to developers is something I know how to get and am used to having. When possible I try to use it for the benefit of the community of games I play outside of work as well. After a number of such talks with various members of Carbine staff, though, I have no interest in giving a dime to them or anyone who's worked for them, Jeff Kurtenacker aside. I did dig the music in Wildstar and that guy does more community outreach than the people Carbine pays to do it. That's just my story though. The game itself still has a chance, and for the sake of those people still playing I'm sticking around to try and make sure they don't get hung out to dry. | |} ---- | |} ---- I'm hoping it goes F2P, or at least gets a cash shop. I also loaded up TERA again, and it is just so good looking, and the cash shop gets you stuff you want, instead of just a flat subscription fee that lets the devs just do their own thing regardless. I'm leaning towards cancelling my Wildstar subscription and playing TERA for free or spending the cash in their shop tbh. My TERA char is a lot cooler than my Wildstar char. I didn't mind the Wildstar direction so much to begin with, but having played both games, the difference really stands out. | |} ---- Just had to check out TERA. They have School Uniforms!!!! http://tera.enmasse.com/news/posts/get-prepped-for-the-schools-of-hard-knocks | |} ---- ---- ---- This | |} ---- ---- ---- Stop playing on Thunderfoot and come back to Evindra where.. there's people in Guild that would help you :P | |} ---- It goes F2P I will promptly and kindly quit this game just like I do every game that goes F2P. I ain't got time for cash walls and the F2P crowd. They make game experiences dismal. I'll go back to the boringness of WoW before I play a F2P game. | |} ---- Sorry Dude. Just not my cup of tea. | |} ---- That most people gave up posting because unless you're blindly praising the dev team your threads get locked/deleted? | |} ---- I complain about things all the time and I rarely get locked/deleted.. unless I go on a rage. Problem is people don't know how to side step crap and go for the feels rather than playing the forum game. | |} ---- YUP. F2P = The public swimming pool of gaming. | |} ---- If you like it more, by all means, play TERA. But I feel I should really inform you that you're objectively, scientifically wrong about the characters looking cooler. TERA characters look like something Derek Zoolander would have a dream about after watching Lord of the Rings. | |} ---- Holy crap... It does!!! I never looked at it that way before but it does!!! | |} ---- As true as this may be XD - It doesn't look like Wildstar, and that's just a good thing. After playing it, then logging into Wildstar, oh my, is Wildstar an eyesore T_T Tera is Pretty | |} ---- As a fellow Eko resident... I know that feel. The slow CX and cobwebbed AH ... "inventory" have been driving me crazy for at least two weeks now. It's getting painful. And I can't even transfer (even if I did want to pay the money, which I don't) because this is already the best it gets in EU. Except Hazak but heh, no PvE => PvP transfers. Rolled an alt there, but can't really get motivated to do the whole elder gem and rep grind again. Meh, meh, meh. Fix it Carbine. I know you probably can't but I have to believe or I might as well leave now. Edit: Disagree with your opinion on looks though. Tera has a higher polycount, but the style isn't that great. It's basically a very Korean type of detail overkill with no overarching ... "vision". I guess that's how I'd put it. Not my thing, anyway. | |} ---- Two entirely different styles, Wildstar is more of a tribute to Don Bluth animation (Space Ace, An American Tale, Dragon's Lair, Titan A.E., and his work of Disney Cartoons.), While Tera is an anime fans wet dream. I also think some of the zones in Wildstar blow Tera out of the water. | |} ---- Tera's combat is better I think, it has no auto hitting. If you can dodge it you don't get hit by some stupid Dev's opinion that players should always take damage no matter what, however Tera is overly sexualized, Pedo race, and nothing for Roleplayers to do there, as well as hitbox problems with Pvp. Wildstar's art is pretty too but it's in a different style. Mostly that game attracting all those pedo perverts made me leave that game. | |} ---- | |} ---- |} Psssst Tera has Furries, They all play Amani (which aren't to far from Draken TBH) I dunno the animations are okay some classes are awesome some are lack luster, Beserkers all look great though, and that Lancer jumping shield slam. Sadly the game is free to play and the populace of that game aren't the most desirable | |} ---- I'd take the odd weirdo in a populated game, than a bunch of hardcore elitists in a non-populated game - Disclaimer, I'm an Elitist. Sexy Furries then :P Let's all go play Tera and overthrow the often eccentric tera populace - Eh, I'll likely go back to ESO - I'm willing to stay until the end of my sub, I have some credd as well - I'd like for this game to succeed, I really would. It's been fun, met some great people. Alas; It's in a weird place, and I'm not sure how recoverable it is. | |} ---- You know, it's not good, but not bad for a new IP launch. Games have recovered from so much worse than this. Few people leave saying they're going to a better game, they leave saying they love this game, but it's too hard to deal with issue here. PVPers got their stuff fixed last patch, so it's definitely recoverable if they keep plugging away at it. I'm definitely sticking around to see what happens with the epic mega uber drop they're building now. Then again, I'm having a great time in the game as it is. I understand people have issues with it, and I hope they get resolved, but I'm loving this game. | |} ---- I think it can recover they are making smarter choices now,.. choices they should have been making and it's in no worse shape than ESO was/is in, But I totally understand needing a break. | |} ---- I hope you're both right, and for a new IP launch I thought it had done very well. I'm using ESO as a comparable because they were both released in such a short time frame of each other - ESO released with a shit ton of bugs, I was locked out for the game for a couple days while a whole zone went down. Gold Spammers and bots galore. No real end game content, an artificial way of producing more pve content. Yet, people have been so patient with that game and it's getting stronger. Wildstar's release wasn't that bad, it released with end-game content, it released with some of the little things in an MMO that make an MMO, like costumes and dyes and even Housing. Yet people left this game in droves. I don't know how it is on NA servers, but here in the EU, it's bad, especially on the Domni side of things. Hardcore was their biggest mistake. I always think these things should be the other way round, because socials and casuals make up such a large proportion of the playbase, and go a lot of the way to actually making the game enjoyable. A game should have enough depth and complexity to appease the hardcore, yet not be so saturated in it, that it drives everyone else away. As hardcore as you are, you can't be hardcore if there is no one to be hardcore with. | |} ---- People didn't really leave because of "hardcore" though, they left because of a bunch of ancillary systems. Primarily silver medal attunement didn't appeal to people, PVP ratings tankers, et cetera. Those are primarily what Carbine's dealing with. People didn't leave because of how hardcore it is, though, at least not really. This game's nowhere near the most time-consuming game on the planet, it just used a gearing system developed for games that throw loot at you, then they didn't throw loot at you. | |} ---- ESO has one major thing Wildstar lacks. An established IP, people are always willing to be more patient with an IP they love than a new one they barely know. | |} ---- ---- True, true - It was also developed by a completely new team with almost no experience in MMOs, not counting the pvp - Whereas Wildstar devs actually have a track record. Having come from Blizzard When I use the word Hardcore, I'm really using it in the way the Wildstar Devs do, to justify some of the shitty design choices, like the rng. People left because there isn't really anything for the casual, and what could be construed as content suitable for casual gamers isn't. Daily quest zones are so archaic. The concept of a pvp gear rating is ludicrous. No one really wants to carry a casual through lots of attempts at all the dungeons because they don't have the time or the want to grind for gear. I get annoyed when I'm pulling 7x the dps of another member in my group, and they wonder why we're having trouble completely content that in this instance is a dps race T_T. You're right though in essence, people may not have left because this game was hardcore, but they certainly left because it wasn't accessible enough. | |} ---- ---- Haha that's a great description :D But you seem to be implying that skinny model types in skimpy fashionista fantasy armor is a bad thing?!? | |} ---- Subs is a cash wall. F2P games may throw some inconveniences at the non-paying customers, but you can overcome them by paying the same or less than sub games. It's not the lack of subs that's the good part of F2P games anyway. It's the cash shop. Adding a cash shop to a sub game is just as good. It worked great in The Secret World. | |} ---- Furries play Aurin too, but not Chua or Draken, :P actually I don't even care what furries do they don't annoy me how pedophiles annoy me and disgust me. Tera completely ruined Lancer class for me by adding in a resolve bar, since then I been playing other things, Other classes are alright Hated change to warriors too. Beserkers were still fun though :P but still my favorite class since Tera was released was Lancer. Until the RE bar. | |} ---- I see this sometimes from people, a F2P game does not throw some inconveniences it throws a ton of inconveniences, 50 dollar mounts(or ships in case of STO) Content built around cash shop purchases, money wall after money wall, and some do Pay to win. F2P is my sign to leave a game and promptly. At which time support goes out the window, no more in game GMs, and the community goes to shit. I can only think of two games that's somewhat decent with their F2P and that was Tera and Guildwars 2. Still won't play a Free to play game though as my bank account can't sustain all the additions, 15.00 month or hundreds? I'll go with the 50 cents a day game. Also could end up spending thousands if you want everything from a F2P game, from their RNG gambling boxes. Why bother when a Sub gets you everything you want to go after for 50cents a day. F2P can't do that. | |} ---- The thing is, they use hardcore to describe the difficulty. And, to be fair, those "shitty design choices" weren't really that shitty. I wasn't complaining about the RNG or attunement myself (I've called myself out for playing FFXI and EVE too much for that to be anything but hypocritical of me), but I don't mind if those particular things change. Obviously, people want to get their gear faster and don't want to deal with attunement. I don't mind as long as gear takes some work still to get and attunement still performs its function. The devs have put together some ways of doing those, so I'm certainly not going to stare down my nose at them and sniff at their design. I don't want people to get confused for my stance, here. I love the game, all of it save the few bugs I've personally run into (and I'm dodging bullets like a Matrix Agent apparently, because I haven't run into anything gamebreaking and haven't seen much out there). So all my criticism I've tried to articulate is almost entirely on other players' collective behalf. Other people want changes made, and I try to help out by agreeing or disagreeing, giving cogent reasons why I do either, and suggesting ways to give them what they want that don't screw up the fundamentals of the game. I mean, the game's not perfect and I don't mind things changing, but if there's one thing I've learned from World of Warcraft, it's that the collective playerbase cannot be trusted to come up with ideas that make a player like me happy. There's a reason my WoD preorder was cancelled, and it revolves entirely around the difficulty inherent in the game and the thrill of actually playing it. I'm perfectly willing to give Carbine the opportunity to fix random systems like gearing for other people rather than go to a game where I have to accept a downgrade in core gameplay. I simply have not played an MMORPG, and I've played a few i my time, with such strong core gameplay as Wildstar has. As far as I'm concerned, gameplay will always trump systems, and it will be easier for Carbine to fix gearing without denting that gameplay than it would be for FFXIV:ARR, for example, to speed up and steel their combat while retaining their gearing system. | |} ---- Wildstar launched on June 3rd. The first monthly update came on July 1st. The second (August) monthly update came out at the end of July (earlier than scheduled). The September update has not been released, but then it's also not yet September, and the devs have never promised a specific day for the monthly content drop... so they have another month before they're behind schedule there. Say what you will about the content drops; complain about bugs or balance or raiding or PvP; whatever pleases you. But to claim that the monthly content drops have fallen behind is just inaccurate. | |} ---- ---- Well I can tell you one thing: as soon as Wildstar goes F2P is the moment I uninstall the game and cancel my sub. In fact, it`s the only thing which will make me do this. I have still not seen a F2P game be, or at least turn into, anything but a repulsive P2W experience, and I will not play another F2P even if someone pays me to do it. In my opinion people are way too impatient, too obsessed with the endgame and too demanding of a new MMO like this. No matter what you do on the internet people will complain, and this includes the development of Wildstar. Make it complicated and people whine. Make it too simple and people whine. Have cartoony graphics and people whine. Have grimdark graphics and people whine. It just does not matter what you do. All you can do is get your virtual helmet on and power through with your own vision, and certainly not panic and go F2P as long as there`s every chance WS will blossom within the next year. As soon as people inevitably work out that WoD is lame and gimmicky you`ll see many of the whiners and deserters return I`m sure. What Wildstar needs right now is to run a couple patches into autumn to get rid of some of the weird stuff, bugs and sundries and then run a good old fashioned marketing campaign to get people interested in the game. Most of my friends haven`t even heard about it when I tell them, and when was the last time that happened to a Blizzard release? And that`s because they drown out everyone else with good marketing. Hell, with Diablo III Blizzard actually ran TV ads, as a world first as far as I`m aware. Used to be combined with high quality too of course, although not so much anymore. But quality is something Wildstar certainly has. Just infest people`s minds with this game and it`ll sell itself, because at the moment the only thing it`s really missing is a community. But that will come in time I`m sure. Most of the people leaving who post here sound like people I wouldn`t really want to play with anyway, and in time a population will establish itself which has been filtered of all the people who need to play a different game, and just needed some time to figure it out. And besides: about 93 million people have quit WoW for good at some point between its launch and today, if their total all time account numbers vs the current active accounts can be believed. That`s an average of nine million players a year, or almost as high as the all time subscription record. People quitting MMOs is a part of the process of running one and nothing to hyperventilate about, provided you have noobs coming in at the other end. | |} ---- And that is precisely why I quit rift and swtor. I spent $15 before and to get the same content as before I had to spend north of $25 depending on rng. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- I will never play a free to play (aka pay to win) MMO. And yes those who are willing to pay, pay a lot more then just a reg sub cause in order for the game to be profitable those paying customers will have to make up the costs for all the non paying customers. Besides, CREDD is a great balance and those who want to play a free game can | |} ---- ---- ---- In all honesty, although Evindra has a much higher population than most other servers right now, actually playing on it is nearly impossible. I play on Evindra and on another, much lower population server, but nobody does anything on Evindra. As I type this I'm sitting at R-12; it's prime time on a holiday, the event has 6 minutes till it fails the first stage, and it's at 0% completion. I just came from my server that's nearly dead and we still managed to get 8 people out to finish R-12 there. I've never been able to complete Tree of Life on Evindra, in fact I've never even seen a single soul on that side of Blighthaven. Scorchwing I've at least seen people kill twice, and they took 15+ minutes. Never seen a group forming for Elyona. Housing zone chat is very active though, so there's that. People on Evindra don't really like to play they game, they mostly like to chat. It's just not an option for the majority of players who enjoy character advancement. | |} ----